Early music — with its open-ended scores and practices far removed from modern conventions — could it be a form of artistic anarchism? This article explores how its lack of rigid hierarchy and the freedom it offers performers might reflect ideals of independent thought and creative autonomy. 
Anti-conformism or convention ?
By focusing on a specific institutional figure, the ambiguity becomes clear. An institution can be both a place of normalisation (in terms of establishing and integrating academic and/or interpretative norms) and exception.
Tim Carter emphasises the uniquely flexible nature of the Schola Cantorum in Basel, where a researcher can do almost anything, given the exceptional level of the students the school attracts, in comparison to conservatories that he views as more “difficult” institutions: there are rules, prohibitions, or precautions to take, and sometimes there is still a belief that the practice of Early Music can alter technique, especially for violinists.
However, Tim Carter acknowledges that things have evolved considerably due to the emergence of versatile or “crossover” performers. It is now a necessity to be able to move between repertoires and enhance one’s stylistic skills; it is undoubtedly a guarantee of increased expressive abilities and greater employability. But beyond the institution itself, one must consider the mindset of those who influence it, which has an obvious influence on practices.
“The Early Music movement has always been, and it will remain anarchic. There is always a sense of using Early Music to undermine something or other, usually the musical canon, even now, to undermine expectations of what performance actually is, how instruments should sound, how voices should sound.
So, there is always a kind of anarchic tendency within Early Music, and you should ask Early Music performers this question: do they celebrate anarchy? Not in a political sense, but in a kind of emotional sense? Do they believe in anarchy? Do they believe in undermining the system or reforming the system from underneath, as it were?
There certainly was an anarchic tendency, and it probably is still there. And that anarchic tendency feels quite virtuous; there’s virtuous anarchy as it were. We are resisting the system; we are going against the system. We are somehow radical. We are somehow revolutionary. We are not, but we construct ourselves as being so. We are green. We believe in climate change, we believe in democracy being undermined by high finance, et cetera, et cetera. I doubt you will find many Republicans performing Early Music.”
Tim CARTER
“I am interested in working, if you like, as a decolonising maestro, (and in getting rid of the word maestro too, if possible!) so that we move away from a 400 or more-year-old tradition with its strict performance hierarchies, towards a much flatter system, where performers’ individual ideas can come to the fore. And that is not because I think the old way of operating produced bad results.
It is more that I want to value the integrity of every single performer by enabling their ideas to be heard in both rehearsal and performance. […]
If you read the history of Early Music, […] you learn of a kind of activist beginning, which was socially relevant, and often countercultural, not least in the lifestyles of pioneer Early Music performers. And Early Music became a real force for renewal in the wider musical world. You also learn about the way in which the Early Music way of thinking has influenced other forms of classical music-making. Not just in terms of the inclusion of new repertoire, but in the way that repertoire and its performance practices have influenced and cross fertilised other repertoires.”
In the institutionalisation of the rebellious Early Music, Imbi Tarum identifies two forces: there is the everyday aspect, the significant place these repertoires occupy in daily musical life, their permanence, and there is the fundamental structuring of a social organisation. She emphasises how this is the result of the intentional efforts of the artists themselves, among whom she is included, but without declaring victory in a definitive manner.
“In the beginning it was very hard to gain a position for Early Music in the concert life and educational life, because it seemed primitive, the modern instruments a bit not so serious. And sometimes the people who played Early Music were not on a high level. And this was maybe a reason that it had difficulties in the beginning. But Early Music now has achieved a very good position. And lots of this music is in all the festivals, operas, big forms like oratorios, or just orchestra concerts with soloists. So this is a big victory. And when this movement began, it was not the case. The fights are always there, between personalities, sometimes institutions. Also, money is an issue.”
Imbi TARUM
How the stakeholders relate to each other
Here too, describing a clear-cut situation is futile. The main relationship dynamics in Early Music are nuanced: it could be described as chiaroscuro, where cooperation is the bright side and fierce competition is the dark side, reflecting the hyper-flexibility of freelance artists’ careers. Depending on delineations – which “side” of the repertoire are you on? – a certain sense of community may emerge – or not…
“There’s something, nevertheless, in Early Music – not Early Music as such, but rather the milieu of Early Music performers – which is much more… not familial, but… Everyone knows each other, it is a network. It is like REMA, it is a network. People know each other, and there’s no need to go through 36,000 intermediaries.
[…] Early Music performers give me the impression of living much better, psychologically and financially, than the ‘solitary’ soloists of romantic or bel canto music or contemporary music.”
The flexibility of independent Early Music artists is also an asset: the capacity to adapt brings resilience.
“In terms of cooperation also and this kind of flexibility that you are playing now with this ensemble and then with another one and the other with another one. We are no longer with mid-seventies or mid-nineties orchestras, you always have to play with different people.
There’s a requirement for that, you have to be very attentive to what is happening, very adaptable and you have to like playing with another and to adapt yourself to the others very quickly, you are not playing with someone that will be your duo partner forever. And it can also help for living today.”
According to him, early music, as a field, offers opportunities for other playing opportunities:
“Students are going to have more possibilities of playing with other people or even more flexibility and plasticity if they know the Early Music parameters and skills, bows etc. because there are many more ensembles and options to play. If you are a “classic” violin player not developing a soloist career, maybe your goal is to have your desk in an orchestra, apart of doing some chamber music. But if you are in the field of Early Music, the possibilities of playing with various groups increases the opportunities you have to do several things.”
Josep BARCONS
Here too, the leeway is greater than in the broader “classical music world”. Do Early Music actors put in more effort to drive, to investigate, on top of their hyper-flexibility? Unlike their counterparts in Early Music, classical artists may be less the architects of their careers, and more dependent on programmers:
“They are not considered independent performers who can conceive their own projects, propose something themselves. They are just adjustments, pawns to be placed on a broader chessboard, which is the world of opera.
Different people must be recruited, but these people are not the originators of the project. […] We wait to be invited. It is like an actor who doesn’t have his own projects and waits for the phone to ring.”
Lucile RICHARDOT
- The complete REMA 2023 study: Early Music – The art in movement, art in Motion
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